Jill Berrick, a distinguished scholar at the University of California, coauthored The Tender Years,1one of the most important books on child welfare published in the 1990s. Her new book, Take Me Home, is a provocative look at permanent planning for children in foster care and unlicensed kinship care and about the foster care system itself.
Berrick argues there is thin evidence that prevention programs or family preservation services prevent child maltreatment or foster placements. She is concerned that widespread support for poorly researched or ineffective family support programs drains away valuable resources from children in foster care needing permanent families. Berrick asserts that